Season 5, Episode 1 Names Mars Murder Suspect

Will Ed Baldwin survive the season?
Right now, our money’s on “no” — and not just because Joel Kinnaman would need to be aged way up if Ed somehow made it to the sixth and final season. The bigger questions, really, regard exactly when and exactly how Ed might perish. Will he succumb to the Stage 3 cancer that’s revealed in Friday’s premiere? Or will he take that ill-advised flight to Olympus Mons with Alex, which Ed’s doctor warns could cause internal bleeding, seizures, or worse? And if we do say goodbye to Ed at some point this season, will it be during the finale, when beloved characters often meet their demise? Or will it happen sooner? The only answer we have right now is how we feel about losing Ed, and it’s not good.

Will Alex really stay on Mars all season?
Once again, our early prediction is “no,” given how Kelly’s son seems to yearn for certain experiences he can only have on Earth, like sticking his toes in the sand at the beach. When Alex graduates from the Happy Valley Institute of Education — Mars’ equivalent of high school — in the premiere, he’s the only one of the four graduates who plans to stay on Mars post-grad, while the others will return to Earth for their next chapters. 

“Even if I could leave, I wouldn’t,” Alex tells fellow grad Marcus. “I love it here.” But he says it with A Bit Of A Tone, and although Alex apparently needs to stay on Mars because of some kind of medical issue that Marcus alludes to, we have a feeling he might go rogue and attempt to get to Earth somehow this season. Surely it will go well!

Now for something sillier: Do colleges on Earth really accept degrees from the Happy Valley Institute of Education?
Maybe it’s just because long-term life on Mars is foreign to us, but we’re having trouble believing that Tulane University would accept, with no issue, a student whose high school diploma came from the U.S. base on Mars. Do they even offer AP classes up there?

Which part of the season-opening current events montage got the biggest reaction from you?
“For All Mankind” typically opens new seasons with a montage of in-universe current events, both related and unrelated to the show’s plot. This time around, we found two “butterfly effect” moments especially jarring: Hurricane Katrina getting downgraded to a tropical depression in this version of the world, and John F. Kennedy Jr. looking poised to run for president in 2012. After that “Love Story” finale, the latter idea is especially bittersweet.

OK, your turn. Grade the “For All Mankind” season premiere in our poll, then drop your reactions to the episode in a comment!